1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an encoding apparatus, a decoding apparatus, an encoding method, a decoding method, a program of an encoding method, a program of a decoding method, a recording medium in which a program of an encoding method is recorded, and a recording medium in which a program of a decoding method is recorded. The invention can be applied to processing of video data in accordance with e.g. H.264 recommended by ITU (International Telecommunication Union)-T (hereinafter, referred to simply as H.264). According to embodiments of the invention, input video data and input encoded data are distributed into plural channels on a picture basis, and the data of each channel is encoded and decoded. This scheme allows video data at a high frame rate to be encoded and decoded with use of units each involving difficulty in high-speed processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in transmission of moving images and so on, NTSC (National Television System Committee) video signals are encoded in accordance with H.264. In the H.264, a larger number of prediction modes are available and a larger number of reference pictures can be used, compared with MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) 2.
Furthermore, in recent years, improvements to increase the frame rate of video signals to thereby enhance the image quality have been proposed for video apparatuses. In e.g. Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2005-198269, an improvement to convert a video signal at a high frame rate into a video signal at a low frame rate has been proposed.
When a video signal at a high frame rate is encoded, the information amount is larger than that when an NTSC video signal is encoded, which imposes a significantly heavier burden on the encoding apparatus. As a result, the encoding processing for video data at a high frame rate problematically may need a high-performance encoding apparatus that can execute high-speed processing. In addition, the decoding side also needs a high-performance device that can execute high-speed processing.